They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eye with sorrow. Have you seen walking through the village A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave.īut what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side. That was my way of going into bankruptcy.

Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the Bankrupt LawĪnd emerged from it richer than ever Myself grown tired of toil and povertyĪnd beholding how Old Bill and other grew in wealth Robbed a traveler one Night near Proctor’s Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary’s Grove, Of what Abe Lincoln said Who played with life all his ninety years, Braving the sleet with bared breast,ĭrinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? They brought them dead sons from the war, And daughters whom life had crushed,Īnd their children fatherless, crying– All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. With venerable men of the revolution?– All, all are sleeping on the hill. Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, And Major Walker who had talked One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire One after life in far-away London and Paris Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag– All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?– All, all are sleeping on the hill. One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife- All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill. Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all are sleeping on the hill.

Spoon river anthology 1915